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Bill Gates likes to listen to Weezer, U2, and Spinal Tap, and his favorite book of the last decade is Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature, which Gates calls “a long but profound look at the reduction in violence and discrimination over time.” He loves playing tennis and the card game bridge. ”I like to tour interesting things with my kids like power plants, garbage dumps, the Large Hadron Collider, Antarctica, missile Silos (Arizona),” he wrote. He also commented on Windows 8 (“Higher is better”), doesn’t code as much as he’d like, and is surprised that more new languages haven’t come along to make programming easier. The last item on his bucket list? “Don’t die.”

You can view all of Gates’ replies by looking at his Reddit user page, here, but here are just a few highlights that struck me:

He and I respected each other. Our biggest joint project was the Mac where Microsoft had more people on the project than Apple did as we wrote a lot of applications. I saw Steve regularly over the years including spending an afternoon with him a few months before he tragically passed away.

On his foundation’s mission:

Our goals are focused on helping the poorest (globally) and improving education (in the US). We spend half of our money on global health. One metric to look at is reducing the number of children (under 5) who die. My annual letter talks about the amazing progress that has been made on this. Amazingly as health improves families choose to have less kids so paradoxically population growth goes DOWN as you improve health helping with almost every issue – from stability to the environment.

So far our biggest impact has been getting vaccines for things like diarrhea and pneumonia out which has saved millions of lives. Polio will be a great achievement along with key partners when that gets done.

On vaccines:

Vaccines are very important in all countries. Some of the bad rumors have lead to kids dying of measles and pertussis. We have backed some information campaigns on the importance of vaccination even in the US.

The ability to test your knowledge and get refreshed on a topic you are making mistakes on will personalize a lot of the learning experience. People like Sal Khan are out in front figuring out how to do this well. My foundation has funded a lot of MOOCs focused on community college kids or kids who have to take remedial math. I am optimistic these will make a big difference.

On technologies that will change the world:

Robots, pervasive screens, speech interaction will all change the way we look at “computers”. Once seeing, hearing, and reading (including handwriting) work very well you will interact in new ways.

On climate change:

I did a TED talk about the climate crisis. Over time we have to dramatically reduce CO2 emissions so using fossil fuels will require us to do carbon capture and sequestration. There has been far too little work on this.

Again, it’s worth taking a look at all of Gates’ answers. they convey very much what he is like in conversation. Embedded in this post: the photo Gates used as proof that it was really him doing an AMA — with a Reddit alien version of himself — and a youtube video he did to answer Redditors questions.

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The second link, a Seralini study, has been widely discredited. The first doesn’t seem to mention GMOs.

I’d be just as worried about conventional breeding as I would about GMOs when it comes to allergies. The oft-repeated (I have not checked it out) claim that there is more gluten in wheat than there used to be springs to mind. In the one case where there was a genetically modified corn that was banned because of its allergenicity — StarLink from Aventis, not Monsanto — got into human food, there were no actual allergic reactions. There’s no evidence that GMOs are causing allergies.

One problem with scapegoating GMOs is that it may prevent us from seeing other causes. Another is that they may be part of the solution. And I think industry has failed to be open enough and that new testing strategies should be developed. But there’s just no evidence that the foods that Americans are eating now are causing any problems at all.

If you’re not against GMOs but for good, unbiased science, why would you be against the discrete projects the Gates Foundation is funding? Why would you be against Golden Rice? You don’t need to be *for* it, but why are you against it?

Because GMOs aren’t labeled, doctors cannot trace food allergies back to GMO products, so no database of GMO health effects can be created either. And the industry fought like the Dickens to keep labeling out of California. Hmm.

I think innocent until proven guilty is a fool’s approach to science, yet it certainly explains the approvals given to conduct these mass experiments on humanity.

I see Golden Rice much the way Greenpeace does, as a Pandora’s Box that will open the door to more widespread use of GMOs. And Vandana Shiva, an Indian anti-GMO activist, sees potential problems with poverty and loss of biodiversity in food crops. By focusing on a narrow problem (vitamin A deficiency), Shiva argued, advocates for Golden Rice can “direct attention away from the larger issue of a lack of broad availability of diverse and nutritionally adequate sources of food.”

WHO malnutrition expert Francesco Branca has concluded that “giving out supplements, fortifying existing foods with vitamin A, and teaching people to grow carrots or certain leafy vegetables are, for now, more promising ways to fight the problem (of Vitamin A deficiency in the developing world)”.

Totally backwards! It’s because we’re having this discussion that I’m not thinking about broad access to diverse sources of food!

Being against GMOs does not strike a blow against monoculture. More than that, being ok with them doesn’t mean being for monoculture. This is a waste of energy we could be using to come up with alternatives to monoculture, which is really not being done.

GM is probably more the solution to the problems your talking about than part of them. And Pandora’s Box’s? Outside of Greek myth, they’re already open. This one is.

I see. So talking about this issue is the problem, and its keeping you away from other thoughts? You keep it going too, and I did offer you my permission to erase the whole thread and stop talking about all this. You chose not to delete and instead to keep the conversation going. If that choice of YOURS is keeping you from something more important, by all means, go do that!

And yes, this Pandora’s box is partially open (and Pandora doesn’t seem to feel bad at all about it, unlike in the Greek myth). All Monsanto needs is even more of a green light to expand their public experiment and GMOs may seriously damage or destroy the natural food supply while putting patented DNA at the forefront of the next food and farm fight.

You may still delete the thread, I’m fine with that. But your mindset about GMOs is what is backwards. In fact, as consumers educate themselves about the food they eat and the effect it has on their digestive health and immune system, I expect we are going to try and shove the lid closed on that box and get it back in the lab where it belongs.

And you’re wrong. The only discrediting of that Seralini study was done by the Monsanto PR flaks and their media flunkies, and of course folks like you who say such things as if they are true.

GM is NOT the solution. You have provided ZERO evidence that it is, while cherry picking what I’ve said to discredit the evidence I’ve provided. As to corporate farming and monoculture, it doesn’t take a genius to see that nature uses diversity as a hedge against attack. Monoculture invites infection and infestation.

However, these are two distinct issues for me. I’m not standing against corporate farming right now, though I prefer and support local farmers’ produce whenever and wherever I can, and think others would be wise to do the same.

The issue is GMOs, the trigger for this thread was your praise of Bill Gates, who has loaned his name and reputation to the most dangerous company on the planet, Monsanto (Among their many gifts to humanity, PCBs!) And if we keep this going much longer, I’ll start backing up my claims against Monsanto here on the Forbes website by providing any readers you may have with yet more links to see for themselves what these scoundrels have been up to while writers offer such soothingly misleading words.

Here’s a place to start: http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/09/28/monsanto-fail-they-cant-sweep-the-latest-shocking-gmo-study-under-the-rug/

From the article: “Agritech companies have given themselves the power of veto of the work of independent researchers. Under threat of litigation, scientists cannot compare seeds … [or test whether] crops lead to unintended environmental effects … Only studies the seed companies have approved see the light of day”

FYI, Geneva-based Covalence ranked the company dead last of 581 multinationals in its 2010 reputation and ethics index, which is distributed by Reuters and Bloomberg. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/the-least-ethical-compani_n_440073.html?slidenumber=0ZHHXzV%2FaPE%3D&slideshow